Central Bohemia - the Rakovník and Beroun areas

Unlike the Kladno area, the river basin of
the Berounka River is mostly forested and
agricultural. The rugged landscape with its
many valleys and canyons has still retained
most of its natural beauties that made it
popular among the Bohemian rulers long
ago. They primarily used it for hunting and
built several castles here for this purpose.
The oldest such castle is likely the mythical
castle Tetín, which Czech legend claims was
the seat of Teta, the daughter of the mythical
Krok and sister of Princess Libuše. Tetín is the
site where St. Ludmila was murdered
in 921, the grandmother of St. Václav
(Wenceslas). In the place where the castle
was supposed to have stood, archaeologists
actually discovered the remains of a Slavic
settlement from the 8th century, as well as
another fortified settlement five thousand
years old. The original Romanesque church
from 911 was reconstructed several times,
then insensitively restored in 1858.

About 15 km south of Rakovník lay the
remains of the castle Týřov, built at the
end of the 13th century. This was evidently
a massive castle at the time, but it began
to deteriorate from the beginning of the
16th century. Today, one can only look at
the ruins and guess what a glorious castle it
must have been.

Křivoklát Castle

The Křivoklát Castle is an attractive tourist
destination; it was founded at the beginning
of the 12th century by Prince Vladislav. After
the middle of the 13th century, the castle
was expanded and rebuilt by King Přemysl
Otakar II. The end of the 14th century saw
further modifications initiated by Václav
IV. Křivoklát Castle was destroyed during
the Hussite Wars, then at the end of the
15th and beginning of the 16th centuries the
Jagiellonian dynasty gave it the appearance
that it bears today. Extensive and lengthy
repairs also took place from 1882 to 1938.
The castle chapel “Na Křivoklátě”, with its
decorations, is one of the earliest preserved
Late Gothic sites in Central Europe. The castle
also conceals an extensive library, one
of the largest collections of its kinds in the
country. It is remarkable that it was basically
collected by a single person, the landgrave
Karel Egon I. of Fürstenberk, probably the
biggest collector of books in his time.

In 1280, the castle Žebrák was built, but
about 120 years later, the castle Točník was
built on the hill above it, the comfortable
“recreational” residence of Václav IV.
Rather than an actual castle, however, it
was probably more of a medieval chateau
which simply “pretended” to hold a military
function.

Karlštejn Castle

Among the castles designed for relaxation and
amusement for the sovereigns, or for military
purposes, there is one, built for a special reason,
that stands out: Karlštejn, built by the Parler
workshop from 1348 to 1357. It is said that
Karlštejn was to provide a home for the crown
jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and for the
relics of saints. The fact is, however, that Charles
IV took up this purpose much later, and the jewels
were then stored in the Chapel of the Holy Cross
in the Great Tower. At the beginning of the 15th
century, the Czech crown jewels were housed here
for a while as well. Karlštejn today holds the most
extensive collection of panel paintings
in all of Europe. This is a unique collection
comprising 129 Gothic portaits of saints, created
from 1359 to 1365 by the workshop of Master
Theodoricus, the Italian-born court painter of
Charles IV. The walls of the Chapel of the Holy Cross
are adorned with polished semi-precious stones,
gold accessories, and frescoes, much like the
Chapel of St. Wenceslas (Václav) in the St. Vitus
Cathedral in Prague. Beautiful period murals also
decorate the lower Marian Tower with its capitular
Church of the Virgin Mary. In many places, these
frescoes faithfully portray Charles IV himself. The
ruler’s dwelling at the castle, the Imperial Palace,
was later heavily damaged, so the original murals
today show us their former glory.

Castles were built not only by the rulers,
however, but also by the nobility. One
example of a noble seat was Krakovec
castle, built by one of the courtiers of Václav
IV in 1381-1383, Jíra of Roztoky. The walls
of this castle, which has been deteriorating
since the 15th century and today is only
a ruin, provided refuge to the religious
reformer Jan Hus.

The Králův Dvůr Castle very near
Beroun was fortunate enough to meet an
opposite fate. After the middle of the 16th
century, it was gained and reconstructed by
the Lobkowicz family and was repeatedly
reconstructed and embellished until the
middle 19th century. In 1394, King Václav
IV was ambushed and captured by irate
leaders of the nobility. The small town of
Králův Dvůr has been known as a centre
of iron production since the 14th century
– the first ironworks were established here
by Charles IV in 1346. Later, the first blast
furnace in Bohemia was built here.

This area is less known for its iron, however,
and more for its chateaus. Chateaus here
range from the Starý zámek fortress,
later reconstructed in Baroque style, to the
Late Baroque Nový zámek in Hořovice
(after 1709). Nový zámek (new castle)
was modified in Empire style just after the
middle of the 19th century, while the original
Rococo furniture has been preserved only in
the castle dining room.

The tradition of local comfortable
residences designed for relaxation continues
even today, albeit in modified form. The first
Czechoslovakian president T. G. Masaryk
established his “countryside” residence
in the frequently reconstructed hunting
chateau of Rudolf II in Lány. The Lány
Chateau was modified and modernized
into its present appearance in 1929 by the
Slovenian architect Josip Plečnik (1872-
1957). The quiet and pleasant environment
of Lány was also favoured by president
Václav Havel.

The settlement of Svatý Jan pod Skalou
(St. John beneath the cliff) had a purely ritual
function from the very beginning. A cave
chapel existed here from the 11th century
and was granted to the Ostrov Monastery
by Břetislav I. Building activities took place
here from the 13th century. As a place of
pilgrimage, the cave of St. Ivan and Chapel
of St. John attracted many pilgrims. The
local monastery was closed during the
Enlightenment reforms of Josef II in 1785,
but the site still serves as a remarkable
example of a place of pilgrimage with
Baroque decorations, also partially the work
of the famous Dientzenhofer family.

Koněprusy caves

Very old traces of human activity can
be found around the Berounka River.
During the construction of the D5 highway
from Prague to Plzeň, a prehistoric site
with hundreds of stone tools from
the Paleolithic period was discovered
here, about 1.5 million years old. This
is the oldest known human settlement
in the Czech Republic. This area, rich in
karst formations and aptly known as the
Czech Karst, holds a number of renowned
Koněprusy caves. They are a favourite and
sought-after hiking destination, but the
site also brought a double surprise to both
archaeologists and speleologists: a forgery
mint was discovered here in which a huge
amount of fake coins were produced from
1460 to 1470. In addition to this, the karst
caves concealed wall engravings depicting
Palaeolithic animals 15,000 years old.

From the 2nd to 1st century BC, a vast (82
hectares) Stradonice oppidum was
built around Beroun – this is one of the
largest Celtic settlements in Bohemia. The
site’s size and wealth of its archeological
findings suggests that this may have been
the site of one of the mints stamping
the famous “rainbow” gold Celtic coins
(staters). Stradonice maintained contact
with the Gallic Aedui tribe (of Bibracte
near Autun, France), and together with the
Celtic settlement of Závist above Zbraslav
withstood the onslaught of Germanic tribes
until the beginning of our era.

The landscape around the Berounka
River, though, hides traces of much more
ancient times. In 1839, the French engineer
Joachim Barrande (1799-1883) was
carrying out survey work for a future railway
when he discovered extremely rich deposits
(e.g. in the villages of Skryje and Týřovice) of
Palaeozoic fossils (hundreds of thousands
of them are now in the Czech National
Museum).

The city of Beroun itself was founded in
1295 by King Václav II. Many of the local
monuments were destroyed by numerous
fires, but some have been preserved
today, such as the two city gates from the
14th century: the Upper (Plzeň) and Lower
(Prague) Gates. Both were repeatedly
repaired and modified, however, just
like many of the Baroque houses in the
historical parts of Beroun.

The city of Rakovník is the centre
of local hop-growing traditions. The
city was damaged many times by wars
and fires, and the only remnants of the
original fortifications are the impressive
Prague Gate from 1516 and the “High
Tower” from 1524. The rest of the
old town, including the Church of St.
Bartholomew, was mostly reconstructed
in Baroque style.